10 infallible ways to spot Resume frauds and fake CV claims

In a competitive job market, everyone is in the sales business. While Recruiters and Hiring managers are selling the company and job openings to candidates, Candidates are selling their skills and qualifications to companies in order to land themselves their dream career. Therefore, like every sales business, exaggerations are bound to happen and within reasonable limit they are even considered normal and acceptable.

But what if they are rampant and beyond reasons?

A survey of 3000+ Hiring professionals by hireright.com revealed that a staggering 88% of them found fake claims on their applicant's resumes when screened properly.

For Recruiters, The cost of fluffy CVs can be huge as all the time and efforts they have spent on hiring unqualified candidates could have been utilised effectively for hiring the deserving lot. Therefore, Ability to separate truth on resume from lies is a very critical skill that can help recruiters maximise their productivity by focusing only on worthy candidates.

These are the lies most commonly found on resumes and a few practices to help you deal with them effectively.

1. Embellished responsibilities – 38%

2. Skill sets – 18%

3. Dates of Employment – 12%

4. Academic details – 10%

5. Past employers – 7%

6. Job title – 5%

Here are some ways to spot them early and save yourself from wasting your precious time and efforts.

Steps to be taken Early in the Hiring process

• Exhaustive telephonic screening

  Questioning the claims on the resume regarding the experience and skills, can uncover a lot of frauds at an early stage. Start flagging possible fibs when reviewing the resumes and probe further on them during the first call or interview itself.

  Asking a simple question "how did you achieve such a spectacular results in so less a time?" to someone whose resume says he has tripled the revenue just in a year can help you differentiate genuine claims from fictitious ones.

• Social Media scan

  Scanning the candidate history online through various social media tools, can sometimes work wonders. If you find something suspicious, probing the candidate further can help you decide the cultural and behavioural fit of the candidate with your organisation by revealing certain information you might not have access to earlier.

• Skills test

  When it comes to technical skills that are necessary to perform the job duties and that can be tested effectively, administering a test or a quiz as part of initial screening can remove all your doubts.

• Psychometric tests

  Conducting a psychometric tests can not only reveal the cultural fit of the candidate for the job, it also identifies any ethical or behavioural mismatch.

• Trusting your intuition

  As much as we would want to make interviewing into a science, it boils down to face-to-face human interaction. So trusting your intuition and common sense to assess the skills and personality fit of the candidate is crucial. If something doesn't seem right, trust your intuition and follow up on it. In case of any doubts, Being conservative helps in the long run.

Steps to be taken Before Officially Hiring the candidate

• Reference calls

  References provided by the candidates will generally be those whom candidates have good rapport with and therefore might end up sharing only positives about the candidate. Calling those references not provided by the candidate has a better chance at revealing necessary insights you might want to know.

• Background check

  When in doubt about the authenticity of claims about educational degrees or other credentials, Asking the candidate to request transcript or graduation confirmations sent directly from the institutions to you in a sealed envelope can be an effective strategy to counter any possible frauds.

• Credit history check

  For jobs that require financial responsibility, checking a credit history of the candidate (Only when it's legal) can also help you establish his financial stability and other relevant claims.

• Conditional Offer clause

  Mentioning that 'lying on the resume constitutes a possible firing offence' on the offer letter can work as the final screening mechanism for stopping any candidate who has tempered their resume. It reminds candidates about the consequences of hiding or falsifying information and hence may hold them back from accepting your offer if they have done the same already.

• Deadlines for Hiring

  Background screening, Skill tests and reference check can be completed within a week. Except under certain situations which are out of anyone's control, do not let these processes delay your hiring too long.

Having zero tolerance policy for any fraudulent hiring practices can help you build your reputation and bar candidates from indulging in any such activities. If you discover that the candidate or the current employee has committed any foul practices during their hiring process, Investigate, give the candidate enough opportunity to explain and take strict actions if found guilty. It will save your company from the negative impacts of having wrong employees on-board.

Experienced Recruiters and Hiring managers might have seen a lot of funny and outrageous resume claims fabricated by candidates. Feel free to share them in comments below.

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I regularly write about Recruiting and Management related Issues and Trends on LinkedIn. Follow My Posts @ LinkedIn

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